I owe you a proper recounting of the last few weeks with I Would Trip-Sit For You but I need to vent.
I'm at the point where I'm literally on fucking antidepressants but I hesitate to say that I experience depression, and I feel it coming on again. I knew it was too early to declare it over with at the start of January because a mere three weeks of playing on Photoshop at my parents' house was obviously not going to fix me completely. I don't know what this means for me going forward.
I woke up the other day about 20 minutes into my Monday morning seminar and just stayed in fucking bed until noon. The class right after had optional attendance, so I remained in bed for another two hours. When 2 o'clock rolled around, and after I had masturbated twice in a row, I decided to make breakfast. E--n had just got back from campus, where he "almost certainly failed a German test." I made my three eggs and my coffee and stuffed down a banana (I have been unrigorously attempting to balance my diet away from the overrepresentation of starch and fats that have defined it for the last two years) and sat comatose on the couch as I talked to E--n about something I now completely forget about. I masturbated two more times. I left everything in the mess I woke up to until I got back home from the post office - the lone productive thing I did that day. Eventually, I cleaned the entirety of the kitchen and attempted (and failed) to get to bed before 2 a.m. In a fetal position, I tried to let Julianna Barwick's The Magic Place sing me to sleep to no avail. It reminded me of whenever the characters in Requiem for a Dream do that. In the morning, I read about addictive personalities, and I seem to completely fit the bill. Today I did way more. But, still, everything feels completely pointless. There's this sick gloom to everything. My brain feels foggy and mushy. I feel completely illiterate and dull. People around me are mulling over profound mathematical and philosophical problems. I mull over nothing. My brain doesn't feel like it's being put to any use. I don't feel smart. I keep forgetting I'm a university student. This feels like forever. Same old fucking shit.
Is this attractive? Will somebody want to marry me in this state? With this behind me one day, assuming I'm destined to beat it? Is this lovable? Can I father a child? I'm not sure. I've now been single for a year and two months. I still feel a faint anxiety about it, like I should be in some kind of relationship at this age. The vast majority of everyone I know is in one right now. It feels like the responsible and respectable thing to do. Neither of those descriptors feels like they apply to me right now.
J--es says I look like I'm "going through something" with the patchy millennial beard I got going, which she meant somewhat backhandedly. She means a lot of things backhandedly. I usually can take it well. That's why we started being friends. But sometimes, secretly, I'm actually offended by it. If I told her that, she would be really upset and tense up for the rest of our friendship, which I wouldn't want. Maybe I should just clean up my act so there's less to make fun of. I often wonder if she's the sister I never had.
-
While we're at it, I have to confess: my porn use has gone out the fucking window. If I'm being honest with myself, it's a once-in-the-morning, once-at-night type thing most days. I'm a lot more politically laissez-faire than I used to be about this sort of thing, but I absolutely cannot imagine pornography being the primary medium of my sex life doing any amount of good for me. Too much of anything is no good.
-
Before I send myself off to bed (this will be the last part of this post I write), I should say nicer shit about myself: I made a promise to myself on New Year's that I would make myself better, and I have to keep it. People love me. Everyone here loves me. J--k told me that night that "Edmonton needs you, Ben!" They would be really sad if anything were to happen to me. They were sad when things were happening to me. You have problems, but you should want to fix them. Keep doing what you are doing to fix them. They can be fixed. You're already doing better than you have been in years. Just don't give up. You deserve to fix this.
Is it special when you're lonely?
Will you spend your whole life
In a studio apartment
With a cat for a wife?
The seasons when they call you
Do you barricade the door?
Are you stubborn, stubborn,
Stubborn to the core?
Is it your way or the highway?
